The Political Sciences (Week 7)

'Politics is far more complicated than physics.' - Albert Einstein

In the past few years, the role of science in politics has been challenged in the context of the climate change debate. The veracity of climate change data has been called in to question in a way which is almost unprecedented in political discourse. The nub of David Deutsch’s description of science lies in its ‘singular’ and ‘hard to vary’ explanations. Unfortunately, such objective rigour runs counter to the popular understanding that democracy means giving weight to a variety of subjective views. On an issue as emotive as climate change, it has not been difficult for some to slip into characterising climate scientists as a tall poppy outgroup who can safely be rejected.

Graphs (c) ANUpoll, 'Public opinion about science', December 2010

Interestingly, a 2010 ANU Poll revealed that public stigma has attached to climate change scientists specifically rather than to their profession in general. Craig Savage noted that the Australian public have high regard for the contribution of scientists to society. Further, Australians would like politicians to pay more attention to what scientists have to say. The heart of public dissatisfaction thus seems to stem from the belief of a significant minority of those questioned that the evidence of climate change is disputed even among the experts. Craig Savage took an optimistic approach to science and I would have liked to ask him whether he is optimistic about restoring public confidence in climate science. Perhaps there is hope yet for organisations such as the Australian Academy of Science which are seeking to redeem popular perceptions of climate scientists, their expertise and their evidence.

Beyond such public controversy, the scientific method itself offers several tools for politicians. Scientific approaches to public policy can generate rigorous experimental data in support of various projects in an era when government funding is closely tied to tangible outcomes. Our tutorial group demonstrated this principle by emulating Esther Duflo to form public policy experiments of our own. Further, my research project group adopted a scientific approach to funding those community mental health programs with proven track records in helping patients. Such policy projects have the advantage of allowing data to be collected across multiple sites, mimicking the way that scientists collaborate to repeat and improve experiments. Michael Nielsen has suggested that the internet will continue to expand the potential of scientific collaboration.

The application of science to public policy is not without its limitations. One of the chief characteristics of the complex adaptive systems managed by governments is that changes to them are difficult to reverse. In addition, not all policies operate across several discrete sites in the way that Esther Duflo’s vaccination experiment did. A national-level policy may offer only one opportunity to choose the correct policy settings. For example, my tutorial group discussed the potential for a scientific approach to irregular immigration. As the Gillard government has learned, it is crucial to choose your immigration policy carefully as it may have unpredictable and irreversible results.

The philosophy of science can teach politicians that it is not always possible to resolve complexity. Rather, complexity must be accepted and acknowledged when making scientific or political calculations. One difficulty we encountered in designing an immigration experiment was that the variables which lead to unauthorised arrivals were difficult to separate or control. We could only focus on one part of the problem at a time. Much like economic models, all scientific experiments are valid only within their own parameters. Politicians should remember the big picture even while focussing on manageable components of problems to help form policy.

Finally, science reminds politicians to acknowledge the uncertainty inherent in complexity. Savage described the history of the study of dynamics from ‘proof by authority’ to Newton’s observable laws and then to Nils Bohr’s declaration that there are no objective things. Scientists acknowledge that the experiments which they can perform cannot tell them everything there is to know. Similarly, historians understand that the past cannot unlock all of the secrets of the future, and lawyers that the legal system cannot encompass the truth of identity. It may be impractical for politicians to take a postmodern approach to policy, but they must at least know that they do not know everything.

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